Planning education to care for the earth - IUCN Knowledge Network

Planning education to care for the earthwith local families. Finally, the project was directed by the same person for12 years and then handed over to another conservation professional, aFrench-speaking citizen of Quebec.EvaluationThe management plan achieved its three aims.Populations of breeding seabirdsMost seabird populations breeding in sanctuaries along the Quebec NorthShore increased - some dramatically - between 1977 and 1988. Theincreases - the figures given are approximate - were greatest among theAlcids: Common Murre (10,200 to 26,000), Razorbill (3,600 to 7,000),Atlantic Puffin (15,200 to 35,000). The numbers of Common Eider andCommon/Arctic Terns (Sterna hirundo and S. paradisaea) also rose. Theexplanations of these increases include better enforcement and the likelihoodthat more prey food was available. The education programme, however,contributed to a marked reduction in hunting and egg harvesting at thecolonies; increased productivity and recruitment rates of the bird populationwould not otherwise have been possible.The lesson is that local support for the management effort and thecombination of education and enforcement to reduce illegal harvesting wereessential elements in the recovery of the bird populations.Improvements in knowledge, attitudes and behaviourA comparison of similar surveys made in 1981 and 1988 showed that localknowledge of wildlife regulations and attitudes towards hunting and levels ofharvesting of seabirds had significantly improved. The legal status of theCommon Murre was stated correctly by 47 percent of respondents in 1981,64 percent in 1988. The proportion who thought it was all right in general totake seabirds and eggs declined from 95 to 90 percent, while those whothought it should be legal to hunt Atlantic Puffin were halved (54 to 27percent). Despite the continued belief that birds should be harvested forfood, an individual’s perspective on the level of harvest changeddramatically. The 1988 survey showed that 48 percent of families werebelieved to harvest eggs and seabirds compared with 77 percent 7 yearsearlier. The number of birds identified as needed by a single family each yearhad fallen from 44 to 24.Greater local involvement in wildlife managementGreater local involvement in wildlife management can be measured invarious ways. These include increased membership in the local wildlifesociety and youth conservation clubs; more applicants for conservation jobs;increased demand for places in the St Mary’s Island Youth Programme; theemergence of conservation committees; local activism (for example, harbourclean-ups); and requests for conservation and tourism training programmes.Training, with the emphasis on greater local involvement, has become theprincipal direction of the programme. ( Blanchard and Nettleship, 1992, andBlanchard, 1994)44